RSS

Related Posts

Steve Benen in the Washington Monthly, and various other left-wing bottom feeders, are using the video I posted earlier of Jon Huntsman talking about a health insurance mandate to claim that Huntsman lied to the press while commenting on this issue earlier this month. I think this is grossly unfair to Huntsman. Prior to writing my earlier post, I searched extensively for any recent comments Huntsman has made about the individual [...]...

I get the sense that I’m one of maybe 6 people who even care about this issue at this stage, but for whatever reason it continues to garner mainstream media coverage, and since I have more to report I feel compelled to cover it. Sorry. Politico posted another story yesterday by Sarah Kliff on the question of whether Jon Huntsman supported a health insurance mandate as Governor of Utah. The [...]...

As Seth Meyers would say: Really? Seeing misinformation about Governor Huntsman? Want to get the facts about his record? Check out the new Reality Room site we just launched today and follow @RealityRoom on Twitter. The Reality Room is your source for “reality checks” that set the record straight. Does a campaign in dire need of support from online conservatives really think it’s advisable to adopt one of the most [...]...

If former Utah governor Jon Huntsman truly resigned his post as ambassador to China to seek the GOP presidential nomination, as rumored, I think perhaps he should have given it just a little more thought: Source: KCPW-Utah (segment above is at about the 20:00 mark) Was this a gubernatorial debate or his audition to join the Obama Administration? With all due respect to Mr. Huntsman, if we wanted a candidate [...]...

Former Utah Governor and Obama appointee Jon Huntsman has yet to announce whether he is running in 2012. Given that he is currently traipsing through New Hampshire and South Carolina, all indications are that he is planning on doing so. And if this video – which was “leaked” to me by someone…uh…very close to me – is any indication, his will be anything but a traditional campaign. Since I’ve clearly [...]...

Like the honey badger, Huntsman doesn’t give a $*#@: The former Utah governor is running a cash-strapped campaign and has put the majority of his resources into the New Hampshire primary, hoping to catch fire in the first-in-the-nation primary state. He emphasized his commitment to New Hampshire at a well-attended town hall on the state’s coast.”I don’t care what the rest of the country thinks or feels,” he said. “That’s [...]...

With the decision today by a court in Florida that the individual mandate is unconstitutional, thus invalidating the whole law, Democrats are bound to begin wondering whether their signature achievement will survive. The case will obviously be taken up by the Supreme Court and the decision will likely be 5-4 one way or the other. Justice Anthony Kennedy, as always, will be the swing vote. Obviously, the left hopes to [...]...

A couple of weeks ago I dug up and posted this snippet of an interview with Jon Huntsman from 2004 which strongly suggested that he was a supporter of embryonic stem cell research: Being familiar with the Eagle Forum, can you think of a few issues on which you disagree with them? Sure. At the risk of making all kinds of enemies—because I respect people on all sides of the [...]...

There is an interesting discussion going on over at Hot Air regarding whether an individual mandate to buy health insurance would be constitutional. Ed Morrissey seems to have serious questions as to whether it would: So I’ll ask again: What authority does Congress have to mandate that people buy a product? What precedent do they have to threaten people with imprisonment if they don’t buy a product merely for existing, [...]...

This isn’t news exactly. The Huffington Post ran a story on May 20 quoting several credible sources who suggested that Jon Huntsman was in favor of an individual mandate in the 2006-2007 timeframe while serving as governor of Utah. Since Huntsman has yet to announce whether he is running next year, there has not been any sort of official campaign response to the HuffPo piece. But there have been a couple of contradictory claims. Rep. Jason Chaffetz from Utah, a former campaign adviser to Hunstman, was quoted in the Salt Lake Tribune stating that he does not recall Huntsman ever supporting a mandate. In the same article, the former Utah Health Director who served under Huntsman claimed the idea of a mandate was on the table, but Huntsman “never endorsed it”.

If Huntsman does decide to enter the race, add this to the list of things his campaign is going to have to address. It turns out Huntsman was asked about his support for an individual mandate directly at a press conference in 2007. As you’ll see, his response does not really leave much room for interpretation:

In light of this clip, you have to love the headline of the Tribune piece I linked above: “Huntsman considered health care mandate for Utah, some say”. Some? I have to say it really was not that difficult to dig up this clip and there was even a reporter from the Tribune at the press conference. Is it really too much to expect local media to look through their own archives and report accurately on questions of national significance like this? It seems to me that Huntsman’s support for the mandate would have been common knowledge amongst the reporters assigned to cover the governor in this timeframe, and I suspect this wasn’t the only time he was questioned about this.

Of course it’s hard to say how significant this revelation may turn out to be given that Mitt Romney, the presumed front-runner, not only supported an individual mandate but unlike Huntsman actually signed it into law. Tim Pawlenty apparently also has a less than pristine record when it comes to the mandate.

Many consider this an unforgivable offense for Romney, and it is hard to imagine how he will overcome this, especially in the more conservative primary states. But between Pawlenty and Huntsman, I’d say Huntsman comes out looking the worst over this issue. Not just because Huntsman seemed more unequivocal in his support for the mandate, but the fact that Huntsman pushed for a mandate as a Republican governor in a conservative state says a lot I think about where he falls on the ideological spectrum. As opposed to Pawlenty, who based on the reporting so far, seemed to be much more resistant to the idea and was of course a Republican governor in a fairly liberal state.

Regardless of who looks the worst on this, for many conservative voters this issue is a significant strike against all three of them, and one I’m sure that Democrat strategists are relishing to wield against them next year in their defense of ObamaCare.

Update: Ben Smith posted this clip at Politico and it’s already elicited a response from a Huntsman spokesperson:

As Gov. Huntsman has said, he looked at a number of different options — including a mandate — assessed them good and bad and decided to put forth a free-market health care plan without a mandate. That program is now the national model for market-based health care reform and on the opposite end of the spectrum from Obamacare.

This gets to the point I made above. Did the healthcare plan Utah ultimately enacted not include a mandate because Huntsman changed his mind about the advisability of this policy? Or was it because the much more conservative Utah legislature opposed the idea? Based on the Huffington Post’s reporting, it was clearly the latter but if Huntsman opts to run it would be worthwhile for someone else to corroborate this.